An accessible and interdisciplinary take on EU law and governance, situating EU law in its political, social and cultural context.

This book represents the first attempt to examine how EU fundamental rights are protected and enforced by EU governing bodies.

New approaches to governance have attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years. Commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have identified, charted and evaluated the rise and spread of forms of governance, forms which seem to differ from previous regulatory and legal paradigms. In Europe, the emergence of the Open Method of Coordination has provided a focal point for new governance studies. In the US, scholarship on issues such as collaborative problem-solving, democratic experimentalism, and problem-solving courts exemplify the interest in similar developments. This book covers diverse policy sectors and subjects, including the environment, education, anti-discrimination, food safety and many others. While some chapters concentrate on the operation of new governance mechanisms in a federal and multilevel context and others look at the relationship between public and private mechanisms and settings, what all the contributors share in common is the pursuit of effective mechanisms for addressing complex social problems, and the challenges they raise for our understanding of law and constitutionalism, and of legal and constitutional values.

A critical analysis of the legal dimension of European Union economic governance.

Global finance is in the middle of a radical transformation fueled by innovative financial technologies. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitization of retail financial services in Europe. Institutional interest and digital asset markets are also growing blurring the boundaries between the token economy and traditional finance. Blockchain, AI, quantum computing and decentralised finance (DeFI) are setting the stage for a global battle of business models and philosophies. The post-Brexit EU cannot afford to ignore the promise of digital finance. But the Union is struggling to keep pace with global innovation hubs, particularly when it comes to experimenting with new digital forms of capital raising. Calibrating the EU digital finance strategy is a balancing act that requires a deep understanding of the factors driving the transformation, be they legal, cultural, political or economic, as well as their many implications. The same FinTech inventions that use AI, machine learning and big data to facilitate access to credit may also establish invisible barriers that further social, racial and religious exclusion. The way digital finance actors source, use, and record information presents countless consumer protection concerns. The EU’s strategic response has been years in the making and, finally, in September 2020 the Commission released a Digital Finance Package. This special issue collects contributions from leading scholars who scrutinize the challenges digital finance presents for the EU internal market and financial market regulation from multiple public policy perspectives. Author contributions adopt a critical yet constructive and solutions-oriented approach. They aim to provide policy-relevant research and ideas shedding light on the complexities of the digital finance promise. They also offer solid proposals for reform of EU financial services law.

Finck examines the emergence of blockchains (and other forms of distributed ledger technologies) and the implications for regulation and governance.

This book provides a range of perspectives from some of the leading environmental academics and practitioners active in Europe today on some of the most pressing contemporary challenges in EU environmental law and governance. The book considers issues such as climate change, the challenge of integrating environmental considerations into other policy areas, and improving environmental enforcement within the EU. The book contains contributions from experts in the field including Mary Robinson, Alan Boyle, Ludwig Kramer and Liam Cashman, and will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners of EU environmental law.